<p>Have a musician friend who feels a bit violated because he just found his wife allowed some of her friends unknown to him to not only see his guitar collection, but also to play with them without letting him know beforehand. Some of the guitars are valued in the 2000-3000 dollar range. </p>
<p>What are your perspectives on the personalized possessions of yourself and spouse/SO? Do you think my friend’s reaction is understandable or an overreaction?</p>
<p>She let them PLAY his guitars?</p>
<p>I think it sounds like the wife did not realize he’d be upset by this. If I was the friend, I’d focus on letting her know that in the future, now that she knows how he feels, she will not let others handle them. </p>
<p>Perhaps he’s so upset because he feels she should have known it would upset him. If it was an honest mistake on her part, ie, she didn’t realize it would upset him, then he should cut her a break and just ask her to skip the guitars on the next house tour.</p>
<p>My first thought is there is something else going on. Thinking out loud here. She seems to care more about impressing /pleasing her friends than respecting her H privacy. She may resent the money/time spent on his music? Or she could just be egocentric enough to consider his possessions * her* possessions & doesn’t really see the big deal.</p>
<p>you have to pick your battles in marriage. He should just tell her he doesn’t want people to mess with his intruments because of not wanting them to get broken or out of tune or whatnot.</p>
<p>He should not assume she “knows” this was something he didn’t want, unless, of course, he’s already said something about it. It’s always just best to go in assuming the other person meant no harm, otherwise you can cause an argument where all you needed was an explanation. YMMV</p>
<p>He’s a musician with guitars worth multi-thousands, and his wife doesn’t know that it’s not OK to let other people play them? I find that very difficult to believe.</p>
<p>If your husband had a lovingly restored 1967 Mustang, would you let a stranger drive it?
Would you let a stranger play a few rounds of golf with your husband’s expensive clubs?
Would you let a stranger try on your husband’s clothes? Or his shoes?
If you have a musician in the family, you know these aren’t silly analogies.</p>
<p>He should just tell her he doesn’t want people to mess with his intruments because of not wanting them to get broken or out of tune or whatnot.</p>
<p>As someone who is as far from a professional musician can be, but still own instruments, I know that my H would never dream of showing them off to his friends, let alone let them handle them. They are very personal & I am surprised that the wife of a professional wouldn’t know that. That is why I thought there was some passive aggressive behavior happening.</p>
<p>Perhaps the people asked wife to see collection and then they helped themselves.</p>
<p>If this was the case, she may need to reevaluate who she considers friends.</p>
<p>Depends who it was. If it was someone who plays guitar and knows how to care for a guitar I wouldn’t mind. But then, my guitar cost $85 
But even my much more expensive electric - it depends on who it was. Nobody drives my car. Sitting in it and making vroom vroom noises would be ok if you were extremely careful.</p>
<p>Maybe she’s proud of her H’s collection and trusted her friends not to hurt anything.</p>
<p>I have a comic book collection, and at one point I decided that I was going to purge it and donate some of the comics to the local library used book store. So I put several long boxes of comics in the garage in preparation for taking them in to donate. On a Saturday, while I was off somewhere, a stranger drove by, saw them, and asked my wife if we were selling them. She sold them to him for (I think) $20. I was absolutely furious. Yes, I was getting rid of them. Yes, the tax deduction wouldn’t have been all that much (but a lot more than twenty bucks). Yes, they were in the way. But they were mine, not hers. This was one of the few times in our marriage that she realized that she had really, really screwed up. What I realized is that I was primarily angry because she had not shown respect to something that mattered to me–stupid as that hobby might have been. I had been collecting those comics for decades, and it was a big deal for me to decide to give them away. And she sells them to some gomer who is just driving by. I felt that she had shown disrespect to me.</p>
<p>This is probably how the guitar guy feels. At least she didn’t sell them.</p>
<p>How can you be married and not know/care how your SO feels about things like that?</p>
<p>
Everybody makes dumb mistakes, and rationalizations. In my case, my wife’s rationalization was that I was getting rid of those old comics, so that if somebody was willing to cart them away, that was a bonus. Wrong!</p>
<p>Even being married to somebody doesn’t mean that they really “get” your peculiar obsessions. Sometimes they have to learn the hard way.</p>
<p>Hunt, that one I understand. That doesn’t seem odd to me and I can absolutely see the logic THERE. But how can you not know that you shouldn’t let someone touch your spouse’s $2-3k things?</p>
<p>My H would react the same way … not that he’d have the opportunity because there is NO WAY I would have let anyone touch his guitars. Not the $100 one and not the expensive one. (and H is not a prof musician)</p>
<p>How would the wife feel if he had his friends try on her jewelry, or showed off her lingerie’?
Guitars (or other musical instruments) are very intimate to me. The big piano in the room…not so much, but it could be.</p>
<p>That woman made a mistake, IMHO. Whether it was just letting “friends” take over or misjudging her H’s feelings it was a mistake. How big a mistake depends on how much she knew about the impact of the guitars. In my opinion, a wife should know that about an H (and so should the H know about the W) </p>
<p>And it also depends on the time together. My H and I had a few “surprises” after we were married, and we’d known each other for a long time before getting married. Today, I “think” I could guess his reaction to most things, but he still gets in a surprise now and then. I astonish him on a regular basis with the things I choose tho’. hmmm</p>
<p>Wife was at fault - she should have been sensitive to his things - I think that most guys have something like this in their lives. Could be a car, an instrument, books, or sports collectables.</p>
<p>That said, this is why people have glass cabinets (or other storage) in their homes.</p>
<p>Gosh, I didn’t realize guitars were so personal! The piano in the living room gets played more by friends than anyone who lives in the house. I don’t think DH would mind if one of my son’s friends played with his guitar. I’m pretty sure that DS wouldn’t care if anyone played with the electric violin or guitar, but he might mind if they played with his good violin (which is not that good).</p>
<p>
I think there is a big difference between “the” piano and “his” violin. I think with some of this stuff, the wife might be right that the husband wouldn’t mind–but it would be important to ask his permission first.</p>
<p>@mathmom
My H probably wouldn’t mind if HE gave the guitar to someone to try. The point was that the WIFE did it without asking. the H did not get the chance to object. </p>
<p>Guitars can make you bleed/blister if you practice much. Anything that holds blood is by my definition, intimate.</p>
<p>There are some people that truly don’t have “possessive” genes. They don’t care if someone touches/uses any of their stuff. There are people who don’t want anyone to touch ANYTHING of theirs. A wife should be able to guess about where on that line her H’s feelings are.</p>
<p>Some musicians ( most?) feel that their instruments are an extension of themselves.
</p>
<p>Who knows? The husband may not be possessive about anything else and the wife inferred from that everything is good for sharing. Or the husband may think they are his prized collections but leaves them out all over the house making it hard to stop anyone picking it up and plucking. I agree wife made a mistake but I don’t understand why it flared up so much as to vent to friends. Couldn’t he have a talk with his wife? Wife apologizes and let that be the end of story?</p>